


Christmas Chemistry

by sweetoctopodes



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Professors, F/M, Fluff, Meddling, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22096576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetoctopodes/pseuds/sweetoctopodes
Summary: Professor Mustang has a crush on Professor Hawkeye but wouldn't dare admit it. So professor Hughes decides to take matters into his own hands to help his friends finally admit their feelings.
Relationships: Maes Hughes & Roy Mustang, Rebecca Catalina & Riza Hawkeye, Riza Hawkeye & Maes Hughes, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49





	Christmas Chemistry

**Author's Note:**

> Happy FMA Secret Santa! I was bearonthecouch's Secret Santa! While I do tend to write a lot of angst, I thought it might be fun to do some fluff for a fun holiday exchange! I hope y'all like it!

Hughes can hear the grumbles of students as they leave Mustang’s classroom. He looks at his watch. Noon on the dot, just in time for organic chemistry to let out. 

“Okay I like Dr. Mustang well enough but god, what stick was up his ass today? I swear I coughed and he glared at me!” 

Hughes grins wryly. That’s his cue, it seems. 

“Yo! Roy!” he says, not even waiting for the rest of the students to clear the classroom before bursting in. 

Roy frowns at Alphonse Elric. “Look, Alphonse, you’re a bright kid and you do well in this class, I just expect better of you when it comes to your lab reports.” Alphonse looks like he might cry. 

Hughes stands back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest waiting for Roy to finish chastising his students. Also, he knew Alphonse. The boy would be upset about this for  _ weeks.  _ Eh, Roy would eventually come to his senses.

“Let’s go grab some lunch. You look hangry,” says Hughes, practically dragging Roy out of his chair. Alphonse uses the distraction to make his escape. “You know you probably made the poor kid cry, right?” 

Roy shrugs. “Builds character. Besides, it was only a B-. And don’t bother trying to take me to lunch, I’m busy,” he says, waving Hughes away. A mistake, to be sure.

“Aw come on now, don’t be like that. I’ve heard your students complaining about you all day. Something’s eating at you, so we’re gonna go eat and talk about that something. Or at least get that stick out of your ass.” 

Roy just glares at him. “Students’ words, not mine!”

Roy sighs. “Why are you always so determined to get me to open up about my feelings? Must there always be a reason for me to be grumpy for just one day,” he replies. 

Hughes tosses an arm around Roy’s shoulder. “Oh my poor Dr. Mustang. Emotional vulnerability is good for the soul. It deepens the bond between me and my friends, not to mention my incredible wife and daughter. Besides, you even admitted it yourself: you’re grumpy.”

Roy laughs in defeat. “Okay, you win. But, I get to pick the restaurant.”

“You’ve got a deal!” 

They find themselves at a local Mexican restaurant. Best chips and salsa, according to Roy. If he’s going to have to put up with Maes convincing him to open up about his feelings, he’s going to do it with delicious Mexican food to deal with it 

They haven’t even ordered when Hughes asks him, “What’s making you so frustrated, Roy? I’ve seen it growing over the past few weeks, myself. I haven’t said anything, but it’s taking a toll on your teaching, and that is unacceptable.” He dips a tortilla chip into the salsa and waves it in Roy’s general direction before taking a large bite.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about, Hughes,” he grumbles. He doesn’t… not want to share with Hughes, but he’ll never live it down if he does.

“You and I both know that is clearly not the case.” 

Really, he should know better by now than to keep secrets from his best friend and colleague. Maes has always been too clever for his own good and this is no exception.

“Look, you have to promise not to laugh,” says Roy. Hughes raises his right hand in place of speaking with his mouth full of tortilla chip. “I’ve developed feelings for someone,” he says quietly. 

Just then, Dr. Hawkeye and Dr. Catalina walk in, a trail of snow and wind blowing in behind them. 

Roy quickly looks at them for a moment before turning back to Hughes, who just has a big smile on his face. 

“You arranged this, didn’t you?” Roy accuses.

“Sometimes the universe just so happens to side with me. I’m not surprised in the least, frankly. But you should really tell her,” he says.

The two of them place their order and Roy is painfully aware of his surroundings, particularly the blonde in the table over on the other side of the room. “I’m not going to talk about this when she’s just across the room. That’s very high school.” 

“Honestly, Roy, you’re letting your own sexual frustration make you a dick in the classroom? You could go find another person and get yourself laid if it will make you relax a little.” 

Roy would very much like to sink into his chair and disappear. “It’s not that I haven’t considered it, I just don’t want to. It feels wrong,” he says. 

Their food is delivered and they begin to eat. 

“You’ve really got it bad, huh?” 

Roy can’t help as his face turns a little red. “We’ve known each other for so long. We knew each other as kids, and we were even in the same grad course and our paths crossed a few times during our PhD studies. I might have been a few years ahead but still. We’ve been through a lot together, and now we work together.”

Hughes takes a bite of his enchilada. “So did you ever hook up in grad school? Maybe it’s time to rekindle that old flame.”

Roy shrugs. “We considered it a few times, honestly but things never worked in our favor. First it was needing to focus on school, then it was her dad’s death, then we didn’t see each other for a few years, then we both had significant others, and now we work together. I’m her department head, Hughes. It would be unprofessional.”

“Unprofessional my ass. She’s tenured, you’re tenured, you can do whatever you want at this point. The worst that could happen is that you’d have to inform HR of the relationship until the Department Head role rotates again. What’s stopping you from just asking her out already?”

Roy opens his mouth and then closes it again. He doesn’t have a good response and he knows it. “I just don’t know. I don’t want to come across as creepy or anything. I respect the hell out of her and we work together so well, I’d hate to jeopardize that, you know?”

“Then what about the staff holiday banquet? Ask her to go as colleagues. You’ve presented papers before together, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to ask her to go with you.”

“We’re not the only two people in this department, you know. It would be weird.”

“You’re overthinking this, Roy. Besides, you’re clearly making yourself miserable by avoiding the situation altogether. Either you quit making excuses and ask her out or find someone else to pine over.”

Roy doesn’t have a response to that, good or bad. “You’re an ass, Maes.”

“Just doing my job,” he says with a cheeky grin.

* * *

Across the room, Riza Hawkeye keeps glancing at the other pair of professors eating lunch.  _ Stop looking at him, Rebecca will notice _ , she chides herself. 

“Is it too much to ask for to go on a moderately decent date? I mean come on, I’m not that hard to please, but I swear I haven’t gone on a good date in ages.” Rebecca takes a bite of tortilla chip and pauses for a second. “What about you, Riza? Any good dates lately?” 

Riza just laughs. “The closest thing I get to a date these days is a night in with my dog. Which to be fair is most nights,” she says. “I’m not interested in dating right now, in all honesty.” A bit of a white lie, if she’s being totally honest.

“Come on, there has to be someone. Please for the love of god let me live vicariously through you with some exciting scoop. Surely there’s some drama going on in the physical sciences?”

Riza shakes her head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I’m working on a big research paper to present here in a few months.”

Rebecca rolls her eyes. “Seriously? Even the political science department has Havoc and Breda causing chaos literally all the time. And Hughes is well. Hughes.” 

Riza raises an eyebrow. “Sure you haven’t got a crush on Havoc?”

Rebecca pouts. “Sure  _ you  _ haven’t got a crush on Mustang?” 

Riza takes a sip of her drink and doesn’t answer. 

“Oh my god you totally do! Oh my god, why  _ him _ ?” she asks. Rebecca pauses for a moment and then shrugs. “I guess I can’t judge too much, my last few dates haven’t been exactly stellar. You could do worse. Still, he’s got an ego the size of Jupiter.”

“Oh trust me, it’s not that hard to bring his ego down to size. We studied together in grad school. You never truly know someone until you see them on four quadruple shot espressos at three a.m. writing a final paper worth half your grade due the next morning. Thankfully, I get to remind him of that.” 

Rebecca shakes her head. “Sometimes I forget you’ve known each other for so long. So why haven’t you asked him out or anything?”

Riza just stares at her best friend blankly. “He’s my department head,” she deadpans. “That’s not exactly… protocol.” 

“I’ve seen worse,” says Rebecca. 

Riza leans forward. “Are you guys okay over there in the political science department?” she asks.

Rebecca leans forward to match Riza’s expression. “Absolutely not, but that’s par for the course. Still, him being your department head might be weird but with how good of friends you already are it’s something you could easily deal with if it got too weird, you know?”

Riza shrugs. “I mean you’re probably right but I’m still not sure about the whole thing.”

“Riza, I’m right about everything. If you’re not ready to jump into a relationship don’t push yourself. Anyway, it's about time to head back, I’ve got class in a half hour.” 

Riza glances at her watch. “Yeah I need to do some serious grading anyway. I’ll be seeing you around, Rebecca!” 

* * *

Hughes has always prided himself in being intelligent and insightful. While he may be certain of Roy’s feelings toward Riza, he is less certain of her feelings toward him. Hughes has his own suspicions, of course, but nothing is truly confirmed until he conducts his own test of sorts. That is, after all, how the sciences operate, whether social or physical. Sure, his experiment might be biased and his data isn’t exactly rock solid, but he’d like to make an attempt at drawing an accurate conclusion here.

He bursts into Riza’s office

“Have you seen the latest picture I have of my wife and daughter? They’re just the cutest!” he gushes. Hughes pulls out his phone and practically shoves it in her face. 

“Yes Hughes, they’re very cute. Aren’t you usually bothering Mustang with this? I mean. It’s great to see your wife and daughter but I thought Mustang usually got most of this,” she says, trying to turn back to her grading.

Hughes shrugs. “Kicked me out of his office. Said he had work to do, but really he’s just been pining over some girl and frankly he’s been insufferable about it. But look at this photo of Elicia, isn’t she adorable!”

Riza suddenly pays very close attention to Hughes. “Wait, what do you mean he’s been pining over someone? I’ve never known our good Dr. Mustang to do much dating. I mean, I know the students say he’s a womanizer but he just likes having that reputation, I haven’t seen him date anyone in  _ years _ .”

“Yeah, apparently he’s caught feelings for someone but he refused to tell me much about her to be honest. That man can be impossible to read when he wants to be.”

Riza is inclined to agree, but usually she’s able to read Mustang fairly well. They’re almost always on the same page about things, how has she not picked up on this yet? “Do I know her? She must be pretty special if she’s caught his attention.”

Hughes smirks. “You might.” 

Riza squints at Hughes. The disarming smile and photos of his family, the casual drop of information...he’s up to something. And she’s not sure if that means that Roy has caught feelings for  _ her _ or if Hughes has something else up his sleeve. And knowing Hughes, it could be anything. “You know something you’re not telling me.”

Hughes just shrugs nonchalantly. “I plead the fifth. I promised Roy I wouldn’t tell anyone who it is. Frankly, I think he should tell her himself but apparently he’s too much of a coward for that. Anyway, I’ve got to head home, Gracia is making one of her world famous quiches tonight!”

Riza can hardly bid him farewell before Hughes is out the door. “Strange,” she mutters to herself. She replays the scene in her head. Hughes enters her office, starts gushing about his family. Relatively normal behavior, as he’d show pictures of his family to anyone who will listen to him for a second. But then he just drops information about Mustang that’s admittedly out of the blue. And why would he tell Riza, of all people? Was it just circumstantial small talk or something a bit more...planned? And if it  _ was _ a planned drop of information that would imply…

“Holy shit,” Riza whispers out loud. Hughes was getting a gauge on Riza’s feelings. Which may or may not imply that it’s  _ Riza  _ that Mustang is pining over (according to Hughes) or perhaps he’s trying to make Riza jealous. Of course, what reason would Hughes have to make Riza jealous of some hypothetical girl? Did Hughes expect Riza to draw this conclusion? What’s his goal? 

Sure enough, Hughes is gone for the day and she can’t chase him down and ask him more questions because that would be too obvious, but perhaps there’s a different source she can gather intel from: the very subject of the gossip himself. 

Roy isn’t expecting Riza to stop by for casual conversation that day. Of all the damn offices she had to walk into…

“I heard a rumor that you’ve been pining over someone,” she says with a smirk. “Is that why you've been such an ass lately?” 

Roy practically chokes on his coffee. “Excuse me?” He raises his eyebrows in surprise and horror. “Oh god, what did Hughes tell you, how much do you know? Shit, I know he’s always trying to get me a date but I didn’t think he’d go as far as telling you directly.”

Riza looks puzzled. “Tell me directly? Relax, he only said you’ve been off lately because you’d been pining over some girl, he said you should tell me about it yourself.” The sneaking suspicion  Riza had earlier seems more and more likely by the second, but she’s still waiting for  _ something  _ to confirm her hunch.

Roy sets his head in his hands in an attempt to hide the red creeping up his face. “Wait...he didn’t tell you anything else? Nothing other than that?” Roy swears to himself. “I’ve made an idiot of myself.” 

“I don’t think you’ve made an idiot of yourself, but to be fair the jury’s still out on that front. What exactly is going on? What did you think Hughes told me?”

Roy sighs in resignation to himself. “I didn’t exactly want to do this here of all places but could you at least shut the door?” 

Riza nods and closes the door. Roy takes a deep breath and looks down for a moment before looking up at Riza and her bright, beautiful brown eyes. A nervous knot twists in his stomach. “I uh, like you, Hawkeye. As more than just a colleague. I told Hughes about it and he must have thought he was so clever trying to meddle. I had thought that maybe he told you about my feelings, but apparently not.” 

Riza can’t help herself and laughs. Roy feels like he wants to hide in his office and never emerge. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. 

“I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at myself. Turns out I was actually just jealous of myself.”

Wait. “Jealous?” asks Roy. 

“I…” Riza also finds herself blushing. “When Hughes told me I had no idea who it was and I was a little bit jealous because well, we spend so much time together that the idea of you being with someone else was...awkward for me. I like you, Mustang. As more than just colleagues and as more than just friends.” 

Roy feels like his heart could burst out of his chest. “I thought...I was so sure you wouldn’t feel the same way because well, I’m your department head, it might be weird, and if I told you my feelings it could make you uncomfortable in the department and you’d want to stop working with me and the thought of that is just too much I...you really mean it?”

“Of course I do, you idiot.”

Roy grins. “So...where does this leave us?” he asks. 

Riza pauses for a moment and thinks. “Well, I’d personally like to go on an actual date with you at some point, but I also think perhaps Hughes deserves a lesson in meddling in someone else’s love life?” 

Roy stands up and sets his hand on Riza’s arm. “I think you’re a genius.” Riza smiles and leans into his touch and Roy couldn’t be happier.

* * *

Hughes can practically hear the yelling from across the hall. Most students are already done with classes for the day, which Hughes is grateful for. It’s embarrassing to hear your professors arguing with each other, especially like...this. Arguments between professors isn’t exactly unusual. Academics are always getting into petty little arguments and “this academic’s work is bad and they should feel bad” moments carefully hidden away in the footnotes. 

But this? Doesn’t exactly sound like a normal fight between professors. Hughes looks down the hallway and peers into the empty classroom where the two professors are fighting and  _ holy shit it’s Roy and Riza _ . 

For a moment, Hughes panics. They look like they might break into fisticuffs at any moment but are just barely holding themselves back. It’s odd and a little bit frightening. What the hell had happened in the day between Roy telling Hughes about his crush and now? Riza had seemed jealous of well, herself, and then this? It’s almost out of character for both of them, and Hughes might doubt it a little if Riza hadn’t stormed off with hot, angry tears threatening to spill out down her face.

Hughes waits a moment before approaching Roy. 

“You okay there, man?” he asks. There’s no pretense behind it, not this time. 

“What the hell do you think?” asks Roy, his voice low and almost a growl. “It’s your fault anyway for getting her involved in this, I don’t need this right now.” 

Roy leaves without another word and Hughes stands there dumbfounded for a moment. “Well I really screwed that one up, didn’t I?” he asks himself. That is…less than ideal. Especially because Roy seemed so smitten with Riza. And now they almost seemed like enemies after the fight. 

Well, he’d best go try to apologize to Roy and make up for it, buy him a drink, drag him home for some dinner. Poor guy could at least use the comfort after getting well, crushed by his crush. It’s his fault, and he’s gotta own up to it now.

* * *

Roy walks back into his office and sighs, shutting the door behind him.

“Think we sold it?” asks Riza, her face still a bit red from their fake argument. 

“I’d be surprised if people  _ didn’t  _ hear us. Although I may have been a bit mean to Hughes trying to sell the whole thing. We were good at that. Almost too good. Are we bad people?” 

Riza shakes her head. “I don’t think I have any place to make that judgment call. We both agreed to this. Although yeah, some of that was...a bit intense.” 

Roy quickly rushes to her side. “I didn’t hurt your feelings at all, did I?” He brushes a strand of hair behind her ears. 

“No, you’d know if you hurt my feelings for real. I’d tell you outright if I’m upset with you for any reason. Trust me, I’m not upset with you. In fact, that was kind of fun.” She wraps her arms around his neck and the two of them lean in to kiss when Hughes opens the door.

“Look, Roy, I…” Hughes stops and stares at the sight before him. This was not what he was expecting.

Roy looks like a deer in headlights and Riza looks just plain embarrassed. 

“Care to explain, children?” he asks. Hughes isn’t sure if he’s absolutely delighted or infuriated. Maybe both? “Last I heard you two had practically become mortal enemies. Sure is fast for you to kiss and make up like that.”

“I can explain,” says Roy, glancing at Riza and then back at Hughes. 

“I’m so happy for you!” exclaims Hughes, wrapping both of them into a big hug. “But if you two hurt each other I will not hesitate to come after you,” he says, his voice a bit darker and weirdly serious. “But also you two owe me an explanation of what that fight was and how you’re now making out in Roy’s office.”

“We were not making out!” insists Roy. 

“I thought it was a bit odd the other day that you came into my office to gossip about Roy’s love life. So I asked Roy about it and well, he told me about his feelings,” says Riza.

Roy nods, gently keeping his hand around Riza’s waist. “We also realized you’d been meddling and thought it might be fun to mess with you a little bit,” he admits. “It maybe wasn’t exactly the  _ kindest _ of ideas, admittedly, but it was still kind of funny.”

“We were going to tell you that we’re now dating at the staff Holiday Banquet, but it looks like it’s a bit too late for that,” finishes Riza.

Hughes shakes his head. “You are both absolutely horrible people, but I have to say I’m very happy for both of you. And I’m sure all of your other friends will be happy when they find out as well.” He pauses for a moment. “Still, that was a cruel trick to try and play. But, you can make it up to me by having dinner with me and Gracia.”

Roy smiles and kisses Riza’s forehead. “It’s a date.”


End file.
